


verbo et opere

by lackadaisical



Series: Hellfire [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:00:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5496284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lackadaisical/pseuds/lackadaisical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Let your fears go; let your wants go,” Master Skywalker continued, as if sensing the ghost haunting her.</p><p>Rey tried; she tried with all her will and determination, but how was she supposed to defeat an enemy who wasn’t there? How was she to drive away a ghost she desperately wanted to stay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	verbo et opere

At first, Rey thinks it’s the lack of sleep.

She hadn’t the time to give herself to restorative, unbroken sleep since Jakku, before she made her first friend, Finn, before she hijacked the Millennium Falcon, before she met _him._ When R2-D2 gave them the remainder of the map to Master Skywalker, she and Chewie were flying away that afternoon. No sleep, no rejuvenation, and it caused her to hallucinate.

It’s reassuring, at first, to think her problem will be fixed with just a few hours.

She sees him from the corner of her eye, feels him all around her, smells the metallic sharpness of his metal helmet mixing seductively with the earthy richness clinging to him underneath. At the Resistance base, on the Millennium Falcon, as she hiked up the steps of the Jedi temple, he walked with her, stood beside her; always reaching for her but never quite stretching far enough.

Rey doesn’t know if she’s reaching back. She knows what she _wants_ , what she daydreams in the sparse quiet moments, but she never allows herself to linger on it long. Rey’s afraid of what it— _he—_ could mean.

That first night, after she and Master Skywalker have dinner, after they speak for hours about the Force, after he answers every question she has besides the one she needs answered most, she finally falls onto a cot. She finally sleeps.

When she wakes, he’s still there.

And then, Rey _knows_ it’s something else entirely.

#

Master Skywalker senses her chaotic mind. The first lesson in her journey as a Jedi is cleansing, purging, eradicating herself of all outside temptations, desires, indulgences.

If she cannot do it, she’ll never master her power. She’ll never continue.

The morning after her arrival, they sit in a grassy field—Rey would come to know it as Master Skywalker’s preferred training ground—and he was opposite her. She mirrored his cross-legged, tranquil posture. He was completely at ease, palms facing the endlessly blue sky above.

“Breath in deeply through your nose and exhale through your mouth,” Master Skywalker instructed. “Imagine everything you’re holding being blown out, forgotten with each breath.”

Rey closed her eyes, focusing on the rhythm of her breath. Fill her lungs with crisp, ocean air, allowing it to fill to her ribs, and then exhaling out long and steadily and slowly.

 _Good,_ a voice, his voice, coached. His voice, low and husky, carried to her on a whisper of breeze. _Let everything go; let yourself focus on the power within. Let it overcome you._

She flinched at his sudden voice. But then, there was the ghost of soothing pressure, the assurance of a brief touch on her open palms. Warmth was pressed onto her cheek, starting as a pinpoint before rapidly expanding through all of her. The phantom of the kiss lingered far stronger and longer than it should.

“Let your fears go; let your wants go,” Master Skywalker continued, as if sensing the ghost haunting her.

Rey tried; she tried with all her will and determination, but how was she supposed to defeat an enemy who wasn’t there? How was she to drive away a ghost she desperately wanted to stay?

#

Master Skywalker assured her she wasn’t the first apprentice to struggle with clearing her mind. It was a process he could only give her the tools to accomplish and a journey she had to complete on her own. He sent her to the far bluffs of his little island to meditate on her own.

On the rocky crags, exposed to the sun and sky and wind, Rey allowed the elements to overcome her. She sifted through the loneliness of Jakku, the acceptance of Finn, the family she found—and just as soon lost—in Han Solo. Emotions clawed at her throat, tightening it. Tears stung behind her eyes. She refused to cry.

But then, there was a hand clasping hers, a gentle voice muttering reassurances into her ear. He was with her.

She should have been livid: he was the shade of Ben Solo, a traitor. 

She should have been enraged: he had dug into her mind, tortured her with such agonizing pain, she was sure she’d die.

But, to her horror and simultaneously euphoria, she realized she understood him. She knew him better in their two encounters than she knew anyone before. He was apart of her—to this, the ghostly hand tightened, an arm pulling her against an unexpectedly warm side—and it was almost as though, when the Force awakened, so did her connection to him.

A soft kiss was pressed into her hair. She leaned into him, burying her nose into invisible black robes.

And then, carried away on the breeze, her mind was vacated. She was perfectly at peace and idyllically serene in the specter of Kylo Ren’s arms.

#

That night, and every night after, he visited her in her dreams. He never wore his mask, leaving his long, tired, handsome face exposed to kiss every inch of her tanned skin. Exposing his mouth to whisper and his tongue to explore.

She invited him in, lips primed to received his kisses, back arched to receive all of him; greedily, she breathed in his metallic, earthy musk. She accepted the haunting thought of him as apart of her.

Master Skywalker never suspected her: pleased she cleared her mind so efficiently. Yet, the opposite—or something approaching the opposite—was true. He wasn’t dispelled from her: he was always at her side as her friend, teacher, lover.

 _What was the harm in it?,_ she would reassure herself in a mantra, as the days crept by and her power grew. _It’s not the real him. He isn’t influencing me._

Rey knew it was a lie.


End file.
